Editor's note: Online star chasing, accompanying play, offline script killing, room escape... In recent years, a variety of emerging social entertainment methods and products have quietly become popular among the "Z generation". How young people participate in it and how to look at the impact of these products is a new proposition for guiding the healthy growth of adolescents. From now on, Nandu and N Video have launched a series of investigative reports on "Social New Pets".
Several people are trapped in a dimly lit and claustrophobic room, and must pass through layers of "breaking through" before they can "escape". In this process, players not only need to use wisdom to solve puzzles, but also may encounter "ghosts" at any time to jump and chase... In recent years, this immersive escape room has been favored by more and more young people because it is full of excitement and fun.
According to an analysis report, in 2019, the market size of China's escape room industry approached 10 billion yuan, the number of industry consumers reached 2.8 million, and the number of stores exceeded 10,000. Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the market size fell by 21.5% year-on-year. After the epidemic stabilized in 2021, the heat of the escape room industry rebounded again. As an imported offline social game, escape rooms have a history of more than ten years in China, and its development has also developed from the traditional "unlocked room" to escape from the secret room to a real-life immersive experience with both visual, auditory and tactile stimulation. At the same time, some chaos has also arisen.
Nandu and N video reporters investigated and found that in recent years, the horror theme of escape rooms has become popular, and the homogenized "black electric chase" element has become the "standard" of these themes, and the safety problems caused by this have been criticized by the public, and the content of some secret rooms contains supernatural elements such as "ghosts" and "zombies" and the plot of feudal superstitions such as marriage and ghost sacrifice, which has also aroused doubts.
Status: Horror themes are popular, and "black electric chase" has become the mainstream
In the labyrinthine space, the narrow corridor with five fingers is covered with white cloth, leading to different rooms, along the way to the "coffin", "shrine", "broken hand", "broken leg", "skeleton" and other props, which is the scene in the escape room "81 Chaonai Street".
The horror-themed escape room "81 Chaonai Street" has elements such as coffins and secret marriages.
Recently, Nandu reporter secretly visited a horror-themed escape room store in Guangzhou, under the game's "dark marriage" setting, players are required to wear red bridal clothes and spirit seat cards "worship", "bride" also has to lie in the coffin "cave room", in the process, the NPC (non-player role) played by the "long-haired female ghost" will be armed with an electric shock stick, the player "life-killing" chase.
A "ghost" played by NPCs chasing the player.
For Liu Zheng, a veteran room escape player, he has long been accustomed to the horror elements and plots in the above-mentioned room escape. Liu Zheng, from Changsha, Hunan Province, was fascinated by escape rooms 4 years ago and has played nearly 100 themes so far. He said that 99% of these escape room games have horror elements such as corpses, ghosts, spirits and blood. In his view, the theme of horror has become the "mainstream" of today's escape rooms.
The same veteran player, who has played hundreds of escape room themes and served as a room escape evaluator for nearly 7 years, introduced to Nandu reporters that after more than 10 years of development, room escape room has developed from the simplest unlocking and decryption 1.0 era to the emergence of NPCs, which have both visual, hearing, touch, smell and multi-sensory experience and reinterpretation interaction 4.0 era, "The early escape room was mainly to test brain wisdom, and now it is dominated by sound and photoelectric interpretation and strong sense of experience with NPC interaction. ”
Nandu reporter search found that on a well-known review platform, with "room escape" as the keyword, 486 related merchants can be searched in Shanghai, and the top 100 merchants recommended by the platform can be queried at will, and it can be found that each merchant has the theme of the label "horror" and "real NPC". Among the 230 escape room related merchants searched in Guangzhou, almost every one of them has a horror theme, many offline stores are directly positioned as "horror room", and all the themes of operation are marked with "micro-terror" and "heavy terror" and other horror levels.
After playing a large number of horror themes, Liu Zheng also summed up the "standard" of horror themes - "whether it is an ancient house, a hospital, a campus, a cemetery or a righteous village, although the scene is set up, what remains unchanged is the dark environment, the electric shock stick used to intimidate the player, and the NPC chasing the player, which is often said to be the 'black electric chase' in the escape room circle." ”
Most escape room merchants play horror elements such as "ghosts", "deaths" and "zombies" to attract players, but different players have different acceptances of horror themes. According to ai media consulting's "2020 China's escape room industry development status and user behavior insight analysis report", 54.08% of the surveyed users believe that playing horror theme room escape games will leave a psychological shadow.
When the Nandu reporter secretly visited the above-mentioned Guangzhou escape room store, he was asked to sign a "disclaimer agreement", which reminded that players with cardiovascular disease, claustrophobia, pregnant women, etc. should not enter, but when asked whether there was an age limit for players, the person in charge responded that "there is no strict restriction on the age of players, and many students have been received."
"Thrilling, exciting, and decompressing" is the reason why Liu Zheng still chooses to play room escape, but he also believes that homogenized horror elements, illogical plot settings, and even real NPCs that sometimes just intimidate for the sake of intimidation make him feel helpless.
Yang Xian, the owner of an escape room shop in Kunming, is also worried about the trend of "escape rooms" in the market like "haunted houses". Yang Xian is a secret room designer, but also the creator of the circle of well-known horror chamber "Pupil Spirit Man", she told the Nandu reporter that although "Pupil Spirit Man" belongs to the horror theme, but the core is positive, its purpose is to evoke the player's reflection on campus violence, the player will not be immersed in horror emotions when they walk out of the chamber.
However, she pointed out that when the work was exported to other cities, some stores changed the script and the secret room, "just wanting to increase the sense of excitement, to make the player more afraid in some extraordinary way, to carry the horror through to the end." This also deviates from her original intention.
A Guangzhou escape room secretly visited by a Nandu reporter.
Dilemma: The hidden dangers of the venue have caused concern, and some players have been frightened and disabled
Horror themes are rife in escape rooms, and the resulting safety incidents are becoming more and more worrying.
The chase usually takes place in narrow, dark corridors.
Nandu reporters secretly visited an escape room store in Guangzhou and found that the corridor set as the theme of horror was very dark and narrow, only one person wide, and most of the NPC chases took place here.
Although there are simple sponge edges and carpets on the floor in the corners of corridors and other collision-prone places, many places have been raised or warped, and it is easy to stumble, and the sign light of the "safety exit" is not lit due to the need to create an atmosphere. During the experience, 9 players were asked to quickly hide from npCs on a prop bed about 1 meter wide, and one player was squeezed out of bed in a panic, but the NPCs did not stop "hunting".
"Almost every escape room has a little injury, of which falls and bumps are the most common." Veteran player Liu Zheng said that the chamber of heavy fear plus chase generally has no bright lights, the crowd runs up easy to have accidents, although he did not suffer too serious physical injury, but he also shared some "strange" experiences with the Nandu reporter: once entered a secret room covered with spider webs, originally thought it was the plot needs, and later found that the spider web was real; once entered the horror chamber with friends, in the NPC chase a friend was dropped in front teeth ...
Nandu reporters combed and found that in recent years, escape room safety accidents are often reported in the news, many of which are related to the frightening links designed to create a terrifying atmosphere in the secret room.
According to Nandu's previous report, a player in Chengdu and a friend entered a closed room during a secret room to participate in the theme game "Busan Trip". Due to the narrow room and the dim light, the player Liu mou stood directly in front of the door of the room. At this time, the NPC played by the staff of the secret room opened the door and fell straight into the room, the player was frightened, dodging around, Liu was unfortunately injured, and was diagnosed by the doctor as a fracture of the right tibia platform, a fracture of the right fibula bone, and severe osteoporosis. After appraisal, Liu's disability degree was grade 10, and the Chongqing Jiangbei District People's Court ordered the store to compensate more than 100,000 yuan.
Nandu reporters inquired about the judgment document network and found more civil disputes related to escape rooms.
On April 30, 2020, a player and a friend in Shenyang lost their balance after being tripped by the corner of the wall in the process of avoiding NPCs, and were pulled backwards by their companions and fell down and injured, after being diagnosed as a distal tibia fracture with a fibula fracture, the court ruled that the escape room play venue was not protective, there was indeed a certain safety hazard, the store did not take the necessary safety measures within the foreseeable range, and did not fulfill the obligation of safety notification, and the court ruled that the store bears 60% of the compensation liability.
In fact, in addition to the player, NPCs can also become "victims".
Yang Xian, the above-mentioned Kunming shopkeeper, said that in some unscientific design of secret room interactions, THERE have also been NPCs that have been mistakenly injured by players. She pointed out that "many players do not intentionally, but they act excessively after a stress response, which also poses a certain degree of risk for NPCs." ”
In June 2021, a "Data Analysis Report on Litigation Dispute Cases in China's Escape Room Industry" showed that since the public litigation case records were available in 2014, a total of 249 cases related to the escape room industry have been found on the China Judgment Document Network, of which about 79% are civil cases, and the overall number of cases has generally increased year by year. In civil cases, "security precautions are not in place" and "internal management is out of control" have become the most important triggers for cases.
Nandu reporter noted that on August 26 this year, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau has carried out a comprehensive visit to check the "room escape" and other interactive game business sites, of which 11 related places with large hidden dangers and cannot be rectified in the short term have been ordered to stop business and rectify, and the main safety hazards of these places include no emergency lighting facilities, evacuation channel piles, and evacuation instruction signs remain intact and effective.
Opinion: Strengthen industry regulation and explore more possibilities of escape rooms
The offline game of escape room was first born in the United States and then introduced to Japan. In October 2008, the first "live room escape shop" appeared in Harbin, and subsequently, this small live room escape game developed rapidly and on a large scale in China.
According to the "2020 China Escape Room Industry Development Status and User Behavior Insight Analysis Report", in 2019, the market size of China's escape room industry approached 10 billion yuan, the number of industry consumers reached 2.8 million, and the number of stores exceeded 10,000. Affected by the epidemic in 2020, the market size fell by 21.5% year-on-year. After the epidemic stabilized in 2021, the heat of the escape room industry rebounded again.
On October 1, 2021, the Fire Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Emergency Management issued the "Fire Risk Guidelines for Escape Room Places (Trial)" and the "Fire Risk Inspection Guidelines for Escape Room Places (Trial)", requiring practitioners to conduct self-examination and self-correction in accordance with the Risk Guidelines and Inspection Guidelines, and relevant departments and units should strictly investigate and strictly manage to ensure safety. Subsequently, the State Council Security Commission Office sent a number of secret visit teams to several cities to inspect the escape room. Some insiders believe that "escape room" has ushered in the "era of strong supervision".
However, the standardization of the "escape room" fire safety problem is only the beginning, and problems such as consumer personal safety and content violations of public order and good customs still plague this emerging industry.
Rong Ruo, an escape room evaluator, pointed out that there is still a lot of work to be done to strengthen the safety norms of "escape room". He pointed out that the relevant departments need to refine the relevant standards, strengthen the fire training of practitioners, let practitioners know what can be done and how to do it, and guide them to make rectifications in a timely manner. In terms of the setting of the theme content, Rong Ruo believes that the horror theme secret room brings consumers a cathartic and decompression experience, which has its own value, and cannot be "one size fits all", but should draw a reasonable boundary for content creation.
Nandu reporter learned that recently, Shanghai issued the "Shanghai Secret Room Script Killing Content Filing Management Regulations (Draft for Comments)" to regulate the creation of escape room content. Rong Ruo believes that this is a manifestation of the formalization of the industry, and he hopes that the relevant departments can further clarify the scale standards of vulgar violence, feudal superstition and other requirements, and guide the direction of the industry.
In addition, he also suggested that a unified hierarchy standard for the escape room horror theme industry should be established, so that consumers can have accurate expectations of the various dimensions of horror before the game to meet the consumer's right to know. "Only by reasonably delineating the bottom line of the industry can escape rooms go down in a standardized way and go further." He said.
In addition to bringing players a strong and stimulating experience, can the "new social favorite" of escape rooms bring more value? In this regard, many industry insiders have expressed their expectations for the "breaking of the circle" of escape rooms and the close integration with other formats.
Rong Ruo told Nandu reporter that in general, China's escape room industry is a leading position in the world, and the iteration speed is very fast, "At present, many secret room merchants are working to break the circle, such as developing 'immersive tourism' and exploring 'cultural tourism +'." Some secret rooms will focus on operating parent-child projects and exploring 'education +' and so on. The bigger trend of content innovation is to choose to combine patriotic education with secret rooms and give play to the positive cultural function of the live entertainment industry. All these will further inject new vitality into the industry. ”
Mi Shouchun, founder of The China Escape Room Industry Alliance (ChinaEGA) and secretary general of the Live Entertainment Branch of the China Cultural Entertainment Industry Association, told Nandu reporters that in the future, the domestic "escape room" industry will further develop into interpretation and offline role-playing games (RPGs).
"Escape Room is no longer confined to enclosed spaces, and players will enter a larger open world where various game activities are performed." He expects that in the future, more and more professional actors and game design talents who master related technologies can join the industry, and with the blessing of actor interpretation skills and sound and light effects, they will continue to enhance the realism of immersive scenes and optimize the player's game experience.
Wang Yuhan, a partner at Rongfu Law Firm and a legal expert in the secret room industry, pointed out in an interview with Nandu reporter that the creation of any kind of work will not be an unlimited freedom without restraint. He believes that the current government has issued relevant "escape room" management documents, which reflects the principle and thinking of the regulatory authorities to not only leave space for the development of emerging business formats, but also seriously eliminate safety hazards and resist the dissemination of vulgar and bad content. "It is expected that the regulatory authorities will deepen their understanding and research on the secret room industry, listen more to the voices of the practitioners in the secret room industry, do not engage in 'one size fits all', and give appropriate tolerance to emerging formats, but at the same time, they are also resolutely not soft on the rectification of security risks."
In conclusion, Wang Yuhan suggested that practitioners in the secret room should actively embrace supervision, improve their awareness of compliance and safety, strive to improve their creative level, carry forward the core values of socialism, and learn more from their predecessors in the literary, film and television circles, and theater circles. "Legal and compliant operation and ensuring safe production consumption can make the escape room industry go more stable and farther."
Producer: Nandu Instant
Coordinator: Nandu reporter Xiang Xueni
Written by: Nandu reporter Yu Yijing trainee reporter Weng Anqi intern Liu Baiyi